I'm an artist working with moku hanga, traditional Japanese woodblock printing

14 June 2007

Using a Mask

I'm doing a lot of the work on these egg prints with stencils so that I can use fewer blocks. Today I wanted to build up the yellow tones in the background, but I didn't want any additional pigment on the egg, so after inking the block I used an acetate mask to protect the already-printed egg area. Here's how it came out:

I'm working with about 20 sheets of paper on this print, so one impression was all I could complete today.

2 comments:

This is really taking me back to my screen printing days. The planning and anticipation for each pull... and the excitement as it begins to come together. Not always exactly as planned because each step opens new possibilities for the next move. I considered trying woodblock printing but it didn't make for me. Fun to watch!

Hi kj,Yes, I saw a post on your blog a while back that you were working with screen printing when you first started out. I really like the couple of prints that I saw posted. I always thought I would like screen printing, but woodblock printing got to me first. Please feel free to offer any insights you might have about stencils and masks and the like from your experience. I'm just blindly groping about...